ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK: Interior Ministry adviser Rehman Malik told journalists here last evening that the government has recovered sensitive evidence which indicates that the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was meant to dismember Pakistan.
He made this disclosure at a photo exhibition of the slain prime minister at a local hotel last evening. Malik said “we have gathered sufficient information that conspiracies were being hatched by some forces to break Pakistan, weaken it economically and harm its integrity. We are facing such challenges and we will foil all such attempt,’’ he added.
The Foreign Office yesterday in a statement said “the United Nations commission will probe the assassination of Bhutto.” The statement quoting Foreign Minister Shah Mahmud Qureshi said the United Nations would form a commission to probe into the assassination.
Qureshi, after holding a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York, told reporters that Ban has assured to form a commission for probing into Bhutto’s assassination. Bhutto, also former leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, was killed at Liaquat Bagh park in Rawalpindi on Dec. 27, 2007, after addressing an election rally.
Pakistan has reached a “broad understanding” with the United Nations on aspects of a proposed UN investigation into the killing but details remain to be worked out, the foreign minister said. Ban has asked for further talks with Pakistan and UN officials but responded “positively” to the proposal, Qureshi told a news conference after meeting Ban in New York.
Bhutto’s party, which now heads a coalition government, has demanded an international investigation by the United Nations. Its purpose would be “identifying the culprits, perpetrators, organizers and financiers behind the assassination ... with a view to bring them to justice,” Qureshi said.
He said “broad understanding has been reached” on the nature of the commission, its funding mechanisms, composition, access to information and ways to safeguard its impartiality and independence. “In principle we have decided to move on, but the modalities have to be discussed,” he said.
Qureshi said he also met with envoys of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — who were “sympathetic and very supportive.” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram told the news conference the main feature of the talks was that there had been a “positive response” from the world body.
“What’s concrete is a broad understanding on some very difficult issues, and we obviously have to work further to flesh them out, so it’s premature to announce them before we’ve actually finished them up,” he said. Before meeting Qureshi, Ban told reporters the two would discuss “whether it would be an investigative commission or fact-finding commission or who will be funding and to whom this report should be reported and how that can be used.”
Earlier investigations by Pakistan’s previous government, British police and the US Central Intelligence Agency have accused an Al-Qaeda-linked militant of killing Bhutto, a staunch supporter of a US-led campaign against Islamist militancy. Some of Bhutto’s aides have expressed dissatisfaction over those investigations.
Pakistan’s former government accused pro-Taleban commander Baitullah Mehsud of ordering the attack, but he repeatedly denied the allegations. The PPP also raised doubts over the previous government’s claims and called for a UN probe, which was rejected by President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf instead invited Britain’s Scotland Yard to investigate.
The British team was given the limited mandate of determining the cause of Bhutto’s death without identifying the elements behind her assassination. Its report was rejected by Bhutto’s family as well as her party.
Islamabad sought the formation of a UN commission after the PPP defeated Musharraf’s political allies in Feb. 18 elections and formed a coalition government.
